winter Quotes

“These autumn days will shorten and grow cold. The leaves will shake loose from the trees and fall. Christmas will come, then the snows of winter. You will live to enjoy the beauty of the frozen world, for you mean a great deal to Zuckerman and he will not harm you, ever. Winter will pass, the days will lengthen, the ice will melt in the pasture pond. The song sparrow will return and sing, the frogs will awake, the warm wind will blow again. All these sights and sounds and smells will be yours to enjoy, Wilbur — this lovely world, these precious days…”

“Whose woods these are I think I know His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.”

“The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree Has given my heart A change of mood And saved some part Of a day I had rued.”

“A thousand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had! Worth three cents more to give away than sell, As may be shown by a simple calculation. Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter. I can’t help wishing I could send you one, In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.”

“How countlessly they congregate O’er our tumultuous snow, Which flows in shapes as tall as trees When wintry winds do blow!”

“...how could you describe a hill and snow to someone who had never felt height or wind or that feathery, magical cold?”

“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.”

In the cold and the darkness, a poor little girl, with bare head and naked feet, roamed through the streets.

So the little girl went on with her little naked feet, which were quite red and blue with the cold. In an old apron she carried a number of matches, and had a bundle of them in her hands. No one had bought anything of her the whole day, nor had anyone given her even a penny. Shivering with cold and hunger, she crept along; poor little child, she looked the picture of misery. The snowflakes fell on her long, fair hair, which hung in curls on her shoulders, but she regarded them not.

She had drawn her little feet under her, but she could not keep off the cold; and she dared not go home, for she had sold no matches, and could not take home even a penny of money.

[I]t was almost as cold at home as here, for they had only the roof to cover them, through which the wind howled, although the largest holes had been stopped up with straw and rags.

Her little hands were almost frozen with the cold. Ah! perhaps a burning match might be some good, if she could draw it from the bundle and strike it against the wall, just to warm her fingers. She drew one out—“scratch!” how it sputtered as it burnt! It gave a warm, bright light, like a little candle, as she held her hand over it. It was really a wonderful light. It seemed to the little girl that she was sitting by a large iron stove, with polished brass feet and a brass ornament. How the fire burned! and seemed so beautifully warm that the child stretched out her feet as if to warm them, when, lo! the flame of the match went out, the stove vanished, and she had only the remains of the half-burnt match in her hand.

“Why, what’s the matter, That you have such a February face, So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?”

“Five and twenty sturdy budges, bulks, files, clapperdogeons and maunders, counting the dells and doxies and other morts. Most are here, the rest are wandering eastward, along the winter lay. We follow at dawn.”

Winter is coming.

“The Yukon was straining to break loose the ice that bound it down.”

“The ghostly winter silence had given way to the great spring murmur of awakening life. This murmur arose from all the land, fraught with the joy of living.”

“The winter grew colder and colder; he was obliged to swim about on the water to keep it from freezing, but every night the space on which he swam became smaller and smaller. At length it froze so hard that the ice in the water crackled as he moved, and the duckling had to paddle with his legs as well as he could, to keep the space from closing up. He became exhausted at last, and lay still and helpless, frozen fast in the ice.”

″‘What I mean is, I love winter, and when you really love something, then it loves you back, in whatever way it has to love.’ I didn’t think that this was true, […] but it was like every other thought and belief of Finny’s: it should have been true. So I didn’t argue.”

“The aged winter fled away Before the bugles of the May, And love, dear love, arose. But when spring’s glory goes The lilacs of our love shall stay, Forever Maytime sweet and gay, Until the lilacs close Beneath the deathly snows.”

“He was a newcomer to the land, a chechaquo, and this was his first winter. The trouble with him was that he was without imagination. ”

“He was bound for the old claim on the left fork of Henderson Creek, where the boys were already. They had come over across the divide from the Indian Creek Country, while he had come the round-about way to take a look at the possibilities of getting out logs in the spring from the islands in the Yukon. ”

“After a while I came to an accommodation with this and stayed alive, a pathetic denizen of a half-world that was as much of my own making as it had been of Borden’s, or so I came to believe. I went through the winter in this miserable state, a failure even at self-destruction.”

“My old grandmother always used to say, Summer friends will melt away like summer snows, but winter friends are friends forever.”

“Winter will never come for the likes of us. Should we die in battle, they will surely sing of us, and it’s always summer in the songs.”

″‘I thought it would be fun to build ourselves a house to picnic in when the winter comes,’ said Peregrine. The Ordinary Princess clapped her hands with joy. ‘You do have the nicest ideas of anyone I know,’ she said. ‘Now where shall we build it?‘”

“You look like a winter night”, he had told her when he had given it to her. “I could sleep inside the cold of you”.”

“Because he finally knew what it felt like to hold sunshine in his hands...and when Lori left, it was going to feel like winter all year round, even on the hottest days of summer.”

“Because he finally knew what it felt like to hold sunshine in his hands...and when Lori left, it was going to feel like winter all year round, even on the hottest days of summer.”

“Because he finally knew what it felt like to hold sunshine in his hands...and when Lori left, it was going to feel like winter all year round, even on the hottest days of summer.”

“Because he finally knew what it felt like to hold sunshine in his hands...and when Lori left, it was going to feel like winter all year round, even on the hottest days of summer.”

“Because he finally knew what it felt like to hold sunshine in his hands...and when Lori left, it was going to feel like winter all year round, even on the hottest days of summer.”

″ One Winter morning Peter woke up and looked out the window. Snow had fallen during the night.”

“Laura and Mary were allowed to take Ma’s thimble and make pretty patterns of circles in the frost on the glass. But they never spoiled the pictures that Jack Frost had made in the night.”

″ ‘Listen Frog,’ said Toad. ‘How long have I been asleep?’ ‘You have been asleep since November,’ said Frog. ‘Well then,’ said Frog. ‘A little more sleep will not hurt me.’ ”

“He watched his herd leaving. And then Thidwick knew he’d starve if he stayed here! He’d have to go, too!”

“It was late one winter night, long past my bedtime, when Pa and I went owling. There was no wind. The trees stood still as giant statues. And the moon was so bright the sky seemed to shine.”

“The Winter of the Dog is a winter Joel will never forget. It’s then that he begins to understand that he’s himself, and nobody else. But he grows up, he grows older, he becomes thirteen.”

“Winter always came creeping up on you when you least expected it. Joel had decided last autumn that he would never allow that to happen again. Before going to bed, he would make up his mind whether or not it would start snowing during the night.”

“Frog pushed a coat down over the top of Toad. Frog pulled snowpants up over the bottom of Toad. He put a hat and scarf on Toad’s head. ‘Help!’ cried Toad. ‘My best friend is trying to kill me!’ ‘I’m only getting you ready for winter,’ said Frog. ”

“ ‘Do not be afraid,’ said Frog. ‘I will be with you on the sled. It will be a fine, fast ride. Toad, you sit in front. I will sit right behind you.’ “

“It is winter. Everything looks dark and drab in the silent, deserted forest. Any movement is muffled by the trick carpet of dead leaves. The sun stays low over the horizon, often hidden by mist all day long.”

“For me, it was almost like winter didn’t count. Summer was what mattered. My whole life was measured in summers.”

“The snows came. Leo’s father wasn’t watching. But Leo still wasn’t blooming. The trees budded. Leo’s father wasn’t watching. But Leo still wasn’t blooming.”

“Little Bear padded up and peeked into her pail. Of course, he only wanted to taste a few of what was inside, but there were so many and they were so close together, that he tasted a Tremendous Mouthful by mistake. ‘Now, Sal,’ said Little Sal’s mother without turning around, ‘you run along and pick your own berries. Mother wants to can these for next winter.’ Little Bear tasted another Tremendous Mouthful, and almost spilled the entire pail of blueberries.”

“On the other side of Blueberry Hill, Little Bear came with his mother to eat blueberries. ‘Little Bear,’ she said, ‘eat lots of berries and grow big and fat. We must store up food for the long, cold winter’. “

“Little Sal brought along her small tin pail and her mother brought her large tin pail to put berries in. ‘We will take our berries home and can them’, said her mother. ‘Then we will have food for the winter’. “

“But that is all right, because there is always something just as exciting to try next. As winter arrives, the bear goes home to his cave, tired after his adventures. The Bear Went Over the Mountain teaches children about the five senses and the four seasons, all through a timeless song.”

“Of all the seasons of the year, the rabbit most preferred winter, for the sun set early then and the dining-room windows became dark and Edward could see his own reflection in the glass. And what a reflection it was!”

“He packed potatoes they dug from their garden – but first he counted out potatoes enough to eat all winter and potatoes for seed next spring.”

“and he carved a new yoke and sawed planks for a new cart and split shingles all winter While his wife made flax into linen all winter, and his daughter embroidered linen all winter, and his son carved Indian brooms from birch all winter, and everybody made candles.”

″ ‘Frederick, why don’t you work?’ they asked. ‘I do work,’ said Frederick. ‘I gather sun rays for the cold dark winter days.’ ”

″ ‘I gather colors,’ answered Frederick simply. ‘For winter is gray.’ ”

“One is the Springmouse who turns on the showers. Then comes the Summer who paints in the flowers. The Fallmouse is next with the walnuts and wheat. And Winter is last…with little cold feet.”

“Oh no, I am gathering words. For the winter days are long and many, and we’ll run out of things to say.′ ”

“My grandmother always dressed in white, summer and winter. She had come to Venice from England at twenty years old and instantly ‘fell like a ripe apple’ into the arms of a worker at the shipyard -he became my mother’s father.”

“The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over the down, walking from Bramblehurst railway station, and carrying a little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand.”

″ ‘I hate winter,’ said Griselda, pressing her cold little face against the colder window-pane, ‘I hate winter, and I hate lessons. I would give up being a person in a minute if I might be a-a-what would I best like to be? Oh yes, I know - a butterfly. Butterflies never see winter and they certainly never have any lessons or any kind of work to do. I hate must-ing to do anything.”

“The winter is cold, is cold. All’s spent in keeping warm. Has joy been frozen, too? I blow upon my hands Stiff from the biting wind. My heart beats slow, beats slow. What has become of joy?

“As the Little House settled down on her new foundation, she smiled happily. Once again she could watch the sun and moon and stars. Once again she could watch Spring and Summer and Fall and Winter come and go.”

Annie lives with her elderly parents in a remote cottage. She is used to being alone. Every day she walks by the lonely marsh to school. Only in winter, when the wind howls in the trees, is Annie ever afraid.

‘She loved both spring and fall. At the turning of the year things seemed to stir in her, that were lost sight of in the commonplace stretches of winter and summer.”

“An old man who had recently gone blind lived with his wife and young son near a salmon stream. It was winter and there were starving because he could no longer hunt.”

It begins with a slave-woman giving birth to a daughter in the frozen depths of winter. A witch appears, asking for the child, promising to raise it as a shaman.

“Once last winter, after a terrible and unusual snowstorm, Miranda had chased sixteen dogs off their street. They were trotting along happily through the deep and snowy ravine in the middle of the street where men and animals had worn a path.”

“A snowman stood in a garden in front of a house. There was nothing special about him. He was just an ordinary snowman.”

When the short days of winter came dusk fell before we had well eaten our dinners. When we met in the street the houses had grown sombre. The space of sky above us was the colour of ever-changing violet and towards it the lamps of the street lifted their feeble lanterns. The cold air stung us and we played till our bodies glowed. Our shouts echoed in the silent street. The career of our play brought us through the dark muddy lanes behind the houses where we ran the gauntlet of the rough tribes from the cottages, to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens where odours arose from the ashpits, to the dark odorous stables where a coachman smoothed and combed the horse or shook music from the buckled harness.

The wind had dropped, and the snow, tired of rushing round in circles trying to catch itself up, now fluttered gently down until it found a place on which to rest, and sometimes the place was Pooh’s nose and sometimes it wasn’t, and in a little while Piglet was wearing a white muffler round his neck and feeling more snowy behind the ears than he had ever felt before.

The tinkles of sleigh bells among the snowy hills came like elfin chimes through the frosty air, but their music was not sweeter than the song in Anne’s heart and on her lips.

The first of December was a wintry day indeed to them, for a bitter wind blew, snow fell fast, and the year seemed getting ready for its death. When Dr. Bangs came that morning, he looked long at Beth, held the hot hand in both his own for a minute, and laid it gently down, saying, in a low voice to Hannah, “If Mrs. March can leave her husband she’d better be sent for.”

“It’s not that I care a whoop what becomes of you, but for the dogs’ sakes I just want to tell you, you can help them a mighty lot by breaking out that sled. The runners are froze fast. Throw your weight against the gee-pole, right and left, and break it out.”